There are many places in the 1961 Liber Usualis where the text does not match that of the 1962 Roman Missal. Interestingly, most of the discrepancies I’ve come across do not occur when the Missal is compared with older chant sources, for example, Pothier’s 1883 and 1895 Graduales, and the 1903 Liber Usualis.

In producing the Solesmes rhythmic editions that eventually led to the 1961 Liber Usualis, many copying errors where made. Sometimes one or two words (or parts of words) were left out, together with their music, or the music of the earlier editions was retained, but the words were not assigned to the notes properly and the compositor ran out of notes and left off the last word or two. The easiest errors to fix are incorrect words, sometimes mistakenly copied from other phrases in the chant, and word reversals.

Thanks to Corpus Christi Watershed, the older sources can be examined online in the St. Lalande Library of Rare Books (jeandelalande.org), and many of the simpler errors can be corrected quite easily. Here are examples of the types of errors I’ve described, together with appropriate corrections. These examples will be much easier to follow if you have a copy of the Liber Usualis handy and have opened one of the older chant sources referred to earlier.

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1) The Gradual “Liberasti nos” is missing the word “in.”

1962 Roman Missal: “et in nomine tuo confitebimur”
1962 Liber Usualis: “et nomine tuo confitebimur”

- Insert the note A and word “in” between “et” and “nomine.”

2) The Gradual “Domine, refugium” is missing the word “usque.”

RM: “a saeculo et usque in saeculum”
LU: “a saeculo et in saeculum”

-Insert two F’s and the word “usque” between “et” and “in.”

3) The Offertory “Vir erat” is missing the word “Hus.”

RM: “Vir erat in terra Hus, nomine Job”
LU: “Vir erat in terra nomine Job”

-Remove the dots from the clivis at the end of “terra” and add the note G and the word “Hus.”

4) The Introit “Gaudete” is missing the word “enim.”

RM: “Dominus enim prope est”
LU: “Dominus prope est”

-Between “Dominus” and “prope” insert the word “enim” and three notes, a G and an A for the first syllable of “enim” and an A for the last syllable.

5) The Offertory “Justitiae Domini” is missing the two words “judicia ejus.”

RM: “laetificantes corda, et judicia ejus dulciora”
LU: “laetificantes corda, et dulciora”

-Between “et” and “dulciora” insert the words “judicia ejus” and the notes F, G, A, G, and F for the four syllables of “judicia,” placing two notes on the second syllable, and the notes A, F, G, A and G for “ejus,” four notes for the first syllable and one for the last.

6) The Introit “Vocem jucunditatis” is missing the first syllable of “annunciate.”

RM: “alleluia: annunciate”
LU: “alleluia: nunciate”

-Add “an” to “nunciate,” place it under the first note group and shift all the other syllables one note group, adding the note A to accommodate the last syllable.

7) The Gradual “Benedictus qui venit” is missing the word “istud” because the preceding words are set incorrectly.

RM: “A Domino factum est istud”
LU: “A Domino factum est”

-Reduce the first syllable of “factum” to one note, and set the second syllable to the next five notes. The following three note figure carries the word “est,” the next four notes the first syllalble of “istud,” and the last note the remaining syllable. (Note that in some sources the beginning figure has two more notes than are found in the LU.)

8) The psalm verse in the Introit “Esto mihi” is missing the phrase “et eripe me.”

RM: “in justitia tua libera me, et eripe me:
LU: “in justitia tua libera me”

-The psalm tones can easily be expanded to accommodate the longer phrase. Sing the last three syllables of “justitia” on A, “tua” on A, C and G, with two notes on the first syllable, “libera me” on F, “et” on G, and “eripe me” on F, D, F, G, F with two notes on the first syllable of “eripe.”

9) The psalm verse of the Introit “Inclina, Domine” has “quoniam” instead of “quia.”

RM: “quia ad te, Domine”
LU: “quoniam ad te, Domine”

-Replace the first two syllables of “quoniam” with “quia” and omit the last syllable and its note.

It is likely this error occurred because the phrase “quoniam ad te” occurs earlier in the chant.

10) The Communion “Qui manducat” has two pair of words reversed.

RM: “Qui manducat meam carnem”
LU: “Quit manducat carnem meam”

RM: “et bibit meum sanguinem”
LU: “et bibit sanguinem meum”

-Reverse the words and maintain the same distribution of notes per syllable.

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The level of agreement between the Proper texts in the Missal and the chant settings should be extremely high. Mistakes as obvious and easy to fix as those I’ve pointed out should have long since been corrected. It seems the Solesmes editors have not been called to task for such errors since those I’ve noticed in the 1961 Liber Usualis are repeated in the 1974 Solesmes Graduale.

It is very easy to check the text of the chant against the Missal, and looking through the older sources does not take much time since they are now available online.

My sincere thanks to the folks at Corpus Christi Watershed for the St. Lalande Library of Rare Books!